Re: ::scr Drooling GUI

[Michael Stevens <mstevens@xxxxxxxx>]

On Thu, Mar 07, 2002 at 02:24:03PM +0000, Piers Cawley wrote:
> > I've seen a lot of inexperienced users who obviously aren't clear
> > on the fact that more than one application is open at a time, and
> > will:
> Given well written OS/UI I don't see why that would be a problem

It *could* not be a problem. In practise, it is.

> > 1) Open an application, do some work
> > 2) Open another application to do something else.
> > 3) Want to do another task in the first application, involving what
> > they were already doing, and will open a new copy of the first
> > application to work on it.
> Which is where it all falls down. What should happen is that the already running copy of the first application creates a new document.

The trouble is working out what the user wanted. Some people will
try to start the application with the intention "I want to work on
things in this application", and for them, using the currently running
copy is the Right Thing. Other people may want a new copy for
$obscure_reason (I often have many copies of the same application open
in order to use them with slightly different settings as suited to
the work I'm doing). But most of $obscure_reason could be fixed
by more document-centric-ness - there's no good reason some of these
settings need to be application-global, which is the main cause of
me having several of the same thing open.

> > 4) Look confused when everything falls over due to having dozens
> > of copies of the same application open.
> That's the fault of a bad OS/UI then.
> The PalmOS gets this right. MacOSn did too though not necessarily

<disclaimer>
I've only played with PalmOS for a few hours, before deciding not
to buy one on the grounds of not liking the speed of input.
</disclaimer>

PalmOS is VERY GOOD in this respect. But I have a suspicion that
after enough usage I'd find myself wanting the ability to run the
same application twice. Mostly because even on a Palm, I think too
many applications have state for the entire application, rather than
the current task/document. (How do you have two dopewars games at
?(only example I can think of because the main thing I've done with a
 palm is play dopewars))

So, in summary, things should be more document-centric. Or $unit_of_work
centric - you can't be document centric in a game, you want to be
per-game centric.

Michael